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3/7/16; London Airport

Next time I open my computer I’ll be home. Next time I eat a meal I’ll be home. Next time I cry or laugh or call someone the colosseum will no longer be a train ride away and Italy will cease to be normalized in my life. 

How do I sum up the best thing thats ever happened to me? The best memories, stories, people, food, pictures, and adventures I’ve ever had all took place or were met in the last 8 months and I don’t think there’s a way I can make words strong enough to describe how I’m feeling to be leaving that behind. I just read all the way through my blog and I can actually see my own growth~self reflection runs rampant when emotions are this horribly intense in so many different directions. Basically, I think I learned three things. 

1. Eat. Food is important for your health but it’s also just fucking good. From Belgian Frites to Greek feta to Italian pizza to the most basic tortilla in butter: eat. 

2. Traveling is who you meet. It can even be the duck on the river or your very self (no matter how cliche,) but traveling is about the other beings in your adventure. 

2. Traveling is shitty and necessary. I read once that there’s a theory that you only get so many heartbeats in your life, so you should choose how you spend them carefully. Using up a significant number of them for a sunrise in Amsterdam or an almost missed train thanks to Italian Coffee seems worth it, no matter how bad your back hurts. After walking miles and still eating something mediocre that cost too much, getting a purse stolen with everything important in it, or being so hopelessly lost at night all you want to do is cry you question why youre traveling at all and always come to the same answer: because this shit is worth it. Every shit moment is worth every good one and vice versa. 

Peace, Europe. I’ve loved you more than I can explain, see you next summer.

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3/7/16; Boarding my first flight

T-Minus 35 minutes left in Italy and none of this feels real.

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T-minus 3 hours Last cappuccino~I'm drinking it standing at the bar like a true Italian but at least I'm not crying anymore

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3/7/16; Rome Airport, T-Minus 4 Hours

I fell asleep on the couch at school and didn't get to say goodbye to Viterbo, but I think it might be better this way.

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2/7/16; Viterbo, Lazio, Italia.

T-Minus 15 hours left in Italy. 

Im officially packed. I am so excited but I am so sad that as of tomorrow the Emmy-Piu won’t be down the street and the colosseum will be much more than a train ride away.

I don’t know weather to laugh or drink or cry. I’m sitting alone at the school I teach (taught) at because my boss let me use the back room to pack. I’ve got focaccia and cherry tomatoes and I’m alone~bordering hysterical and ecstatic. 

The thought of me alone in Heathrow the first time keeps popping into my mind. I was so sick but I bought Starbucks anyway and proceeded to throw it up. Looking back it was probably nerves; I don’t really have those anymore but instead of puking it looks like I’m going to cry. A lot. 

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2/7/16; Ibiza Airport

T-Minus 26 hours I'm either crying or sleeping and it's really not ok.

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1/8/16; Ibiza Airport

On my way back to Rome to go back to Viterbo and no matter what I do I'm thinking about how I leave Europe the day after tomorrow and it's heartbreaking.

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Now that I know you'll be there I might be back next year.

Boozy, on my last few minutes in London about Pamplona next year

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27/7/16-1/8/16; London After being spoiled, stranded, and sad, I am finally leaving London. The Kane family reminded me why I'm going home but didn't make it all that much easier to accept with the museums, meals, and live music we partook in over the last few days. I also got to see my Spain family and cry to my California soul mate or walk along the canals of Islington and see a bunch of modern art. I saw London from so many different sides and views that I'm leaving with a sense of completeness, despite the recent drama. I'll be back, London, I promise.

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1/8/16; Still in London Quick little shoutout to Sean for housing me and dealing with my panic stricken sleepless mind on such short notice. Like he says, posse people look out for each other, but I'm still monumentally thankful that he not only looked out for me but put up with me when I wasn't the easiest to put up with.

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31/7/16; London (Still)

Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. Looks like I'm stuck here till further notice; looks like my current state of being will be dealing with crisis.

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31/7/16; Kings Cross, London It's all too easy to forget how much you need family. These five people have taken me in for years~now they've spoiled me on multiple continents, and I couldn't be more grateful. So much love for each of them, so much appreciation and gratitude and laughter and even if we only are McDonald's and camped in the streets I would be happy just to be in their presence-I really do love the Kane family and feel like the luckiest person in the world to be an honorary member of it. See you guys in a few weeks~until then I'll think about you 24/7 and wish I had that buttered popcorn manhattan.

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30/7/16; London

Just walked all the way across London in heels so I could spend more time with Elliot; worth it.

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30/7/16; London Everyone take a moment to let me shitshow with some of the Posse in London, please. So happy I got to see some of the Spain Family in their natural habitats; so honored to know each and every one of them.

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30/7/16; London Sometimes you meet people. Traveling has introduced me to some of the best people in the world but truth be told my number 1 is Californian through and through. I introduced him to my London friends, drank a glass of wine at the Tate modern with him, sobbed into his chest, and cleaned up after his drunken mess because it was his birthday and we're soulmates; I wouldn't be me without him. His entrance into adulthood was swift and drunk and special and graceful and I know the next year will follow suit~being there for it reminds me why I have to go home. @we-will-glow

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30/7/16; London

Elliot's birthday starts with a canal walk and coffee and I don't think either of us would have had it any other way.

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29/7/16; The London Gallery That feeling when you recognize something in a cool museum